Amazon Tries Live TV; Digital Spend To Surpass TV

Amazon’s foray into original content is well-known, but now it’s adding a live TV fashion show designed to let viewers shop as they watch. The show is called Style Code Live and it features expert fashion/beauty tips with live pop-up links, enabling viewers to shop for the products they see. There’s a social angle, letting audience members approve of various products and ask questions or make comments. The show is on weeknights at 9 p.m. Eastern. Check it out if you want to get beauty tips while you shop - or if you want to see how Amazon is conflating original content with performance marketing. Read more.

The Long Haul

Nice little budget you got there… Wouldn’t want anything to happen to it. Or so says the digital ad world after seeing eMarketer’s research yesterday. “Next year will mark a major milestone for ad spending, as total digital surpasses TV for the first time,” predicts one quarterly report. While TV ads are a $70 billion business, its yearly growth percentages are dwindling. In 2017, TV ad spend is estimated to reach $72 billion, or 35.8% of total media spend in the US. Contrast that with digital, which is forecasted to hit $77 billion, or 38.4% of total ad spend. On the commerce front, mobile and digital channels are expanding their ROI and overall sales at a rapid clip.

Can’t Shake It

Reddit has 10 salespeople pitching advertisers on Reddit’s platform, but its fiery, critical users scare even the strong of heart. Nissan, for example, executed a successful viral stunt on Reddit that involved the delivery of a car in a box, but then took a beating from Reddit users for only answering softball questions during one of Reddit’s famous “Ask Me Anything” Q&As. It was almost a year ago that Reddit refocused its advertising business, and some agencies are still waiting for the hostility to tone down before giving the all-clear to brands. Read on.

Don’t Infringe On Me

In a potential tumble for UK-based Yieldify, US rival Bounce Exchange has alleged the firm swiped elements of its code. The Financial Times broke the story about the copyright infringement complaint, which was filed last year. Read it. Back in June, Yieldify snapped up $11.5 million in series A funding from SoftBank and Google Ventures. But Bounce claims Yieldify founders set up fake prospective customer meetings expressly to finagle its rival’s secret sauce. Yieldify disputes the claim and has filed a countersuit. It’s unclear what GV and SoftBank will do exactly – neither commented to the FT.

Is This Thing On?

Mic.com is all about millennials and millennials are all about video – hence the publisher’s acquisition of Hyper, an app that curates video content from across the web and packages it in a digital magazine-type format. Think of it as Flipboard for video. As Mike Shields ofThe Wall Street Journal points out, while other publishers run off-platform to players like Snapchat and Facebook, Mic’s approach is to buy a platform of its own. “This feels like it has real benefits,” says GroupM Chief Digital Officer Rob Norman. “The challenge of course is distribution.”